Lighting up giving you aches? Try some MJ space cakes!! THC is your friend…weed tinctures will help you mend!! Smoke make you recoil? Try hemp oil!!Don’t criticize…vap-o-rize!!

Perhaps our friend Bob is anti smoke,not anti marijuana’s benefits?

You see Bob, just because I enjoyed drinking a relaxing tea made out of stinging nettles today doesn’t mean I want to rub those same stinging nettles on my private parts. What’s my point? Hate the bad delivery system, not the incredibly beneficial plant.

You site Tommy Chong getting prostate cancer as an anti0marijuana anecdote…

and since we are trying to see the forest and not the trees by exploring the many methods of ingesting marijuana other than smoking it, maybe you can’t connect marijuana use to prostate cancer (unless he put it in his rear, which some people do). In fact, perhaps if Tommy Chong took marijuana enemas he would have avoided prostate cancer or could heal it now…WHAT!? Marijuana enemas, does such a thing exist? Apparently, yes:

How Cannabinoids Kill Cancer Cells

This clip is from the recently-aired PBS documentary, ‘Clearing the Smoke: The Science of Cannabis,’ which explores the scientifically proven fact that cannabinoids kill cancer cells in test tubes and in laboratory animals.

Cannabinoid receptors exist throughout organs of the human body, especially in the brain and in the immune system. These act like targets for cannabinoids. Once they bind to the receptors, peptides are released that tell the cancer cells to die, i.e., to commit suicide.

One doctor interviewed has been so encouraged by the laboratory results that he has begun cannabis trials with his own leukemia patients.

A state Capitol hearing today on how Proposition 19 may affect the future universe of California produced such disparate views that Assemblyman Tom Ammiano pondered the potential outcomes as perhaps only he can.

“A drug czar today could be on Dancing With the Stars tomorrow,” he said.

It was a light moment in a otherwise serious discussion over how California and its local governments will be impacted if voters pass the initiative to legalize marijuana for recreational use, permit small residential cultivation and allow cities and counties to tax and regulate retail pot sales.

On one side of the argument was Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully. Speaking on behalf of the California District Attorneys Association, she argued that the measure would do little or nothing to combat crime and would create an utter morass for local municipalities.

“It will not impede the drug cartels that are coming across our border and actually growing on our state and federal lands,” Scully told the joint legislative public safety committee hearing chaired by Ammiano and state Sen. Mark Leno, two San Francisco lawmakers and Prop 19 supporters.

Scully also argued that local governments will be flummoxed by the vagueness of the initiative. And she said the measure “will be so fraught with litigation over its merits…it will take years to ever take effect.”

But Prop 19 campaign spokeswoman Dale Sky Jones argued that California’s initiative will bring about changes mirroring the end of alcohol prohibition if passed.

“This is the first step to take control away from the criminals,” she said, adding: “We don’t have illegal grape-growing cartels in our national forests. And they don’t take out guns. They take out advertising.”

Jones also argued that the flexibility of the measure in allowing local governments to decide whether or not to allow retail pot operations – and determine how to tax them – is a plus.

“I’m not concerned about the patchwork,” she said. “Our cities and counties do many things on the local level quite successfully.”

Rand Corp researcher Beau Kilmer reiterated findings of the think tank’s recent study, declaring that California marijuana prices could plummet by 80 percent if Proposition 19 passed. Kilmer also said marijuana use could go up by between 50 and 100 percent.

At maximum use, he said, “We would be back to where we were in the 1970s.”

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A coalition of medical marijuana advocates came out Tuesday against a California ballot initiative that would legalize the drug for recreational use and tax its sales.

Proposition 19 would inadvertently harm the most vulnerable patients by allowing local governments to prohibit the sale and purchase of marijuana in their jurisdictions, California Cannabis Association members said.

At a gathering outside the Capitol, the group predicted many cities and counties would impose such bans if voters approve the initiative, leaving local medical marijuana users with few options.

“The people who would be most affected are the sick, the elderly — patients who cannot grow their own and cannot travel to pick up a prescription,” said Amir Daliri, president of Cascade Wellness Center, a medical marijuana dispensary north of Chico.

Supporters of Proposition 19 said it explicitly protects the rights of patients and would provide them with safer and easier access to the drug by creating a strictly controlled, clearly defined legal system for pot cultivation, distribution and sales.

“Proposition 19 is actually going to further clarify that sales of medical cannabis are legal in this state,” said Dale Sky Jones, a spokeswoman for the Yes on 19 campaign. “The intent of our law is to protect medical cannabis patients and their rights.”

If Proposition 19 passes in November, California would become the first state to legalize and regulate recreational pot use. Adults could possess up to one ounce of the drug.

Supporters have targeted two areas of concern for voters: the economy and crime. Legalized pot would bring much-needed revenue to the state and reduce the influence of drug cartels, they said.

The measure was endorsed Tuesday by the largest labor union in the state. The Service Employees International Union, which has 700,000 members, said revenue generated by the initiative would help California preserve jobs and avoid cuts to key services such as education and health care.

The union represents workers in health care, building services and state and local government.

Critics question the economic effects and contend the initiative will simply serve to boost marijuana usage and drug-related crimes.

A Field Poll released in July found 48 percent of likely voters opposed the measure, while 44 percent supported it.

Auburn Hills — A 43-year-old medical marijuana card holder was charged Thursday with violating state law by illegally growing plants in the back yard of his home and within 1,000 feet of an elementary school.

Mark Alan Rowe of Auburn Hills is charged with one count of manufacturing the controlled substance of marijuana in connection with a search warrant executed Wednesday at his home on Caroline Street. The offense is a felony punishable by up to four years in prison and a $20,000 fine.

Rowe, who was released on $10,000 personal bond, holds a valid Michigan Department of Community Health medical marijuana patient ID card.

Auburn Hills Lt. Casimir Miarka said police received a tip Tuesday that marijuana was being grown in Rowe’s back yard and officers confiscated 12 plants from the yard, which has a four-foot high chain link fence.

“If he had the plants growing inside his house and secure, we wouldn’t be having this conversation because he does have a card,” Miarka said. “But I don’t think out in the open qualifies under the law.”

Miarka said some plants were more than six feet tall.

Police said under Michigan Department of Community Health administration rules, a qualifying patient can keep 12 plants in an enclosed, locked facility, defined as a “closet, room, or other enclosed area equipped with locks or other security devices that permit access only by a registered primary caregiver or registered qualifying patient.”

Enforcement of Rhode Island’s Medical Marijuana Program is causing frustration and confusion for both police and patients.

Two people were arrested Thursday for possession of at least 180 pot plants at a former church in West Warwick. They said they were within their rights under the state’s Medical Marijuana Program.

But police disagree.

“I think everyone would like to see some more clarification on the law,” said Peter Hanney of the Rhode Island Department of Health.

Hanney said there’s nothing in the law to keep multiple patients and caregivers from growing marijuana at the same location. And nowhere in the law does it specify how many people can grow at one street address.

The law does limit each patient to 12 plants and each caregiver to 24 plants. So a person acting as both a patient and caregiver would be limited to 36 plants.

John L. Gray, the Altoona police chief, forgot to mention the Governor’s Office of Drug Control Policy was waiting to hear the Iowa Board of Pharmacy’s recommendation, that unanimously recommended implementing a medical marijuana program in Iowa. (” ‘Medical’ Marijuana a Path to Legalization,” Sept. 8 letter.)

The Drug Control Policy office considers prescription painkillers as the largest drug problem in Iowa. Marijuana is a safe alternative to the opiate-based (heroin) pills.

Over 95 percent of the 132 people who testified did so in support. These were patients, doctors and researchers. Over 12,000 additional pages were submitted, the vast majority of which were scientific studies. Marinol (THC) pills are legal, but they don’t contain the over 80 medicinal compounds found in marijuana. They are ineffective and cost over $800 a month. A cancer patient with chronic nausea should not be forced to attempt swallowing a pill with the hope it will work in an hour. Medical marijuana allows instant, effective relief.

I agree with Gray that it is important for citizens to make their voices heard. Iowans, by 64 percent, support medical marijuana.

PHOENIX — A spirited debate has developed over a medical marijuana proposition on Arizona’s Nov. 2 general election ballot.

Proposition 203 would allow patients with a debilitating medical condition to purchase, possess and use 2.5 ounces of marijuana every two weeks with a doctor’s recommendation. The marijuana would be grown and sold by non-profit dispensaries regulated by the state.

Supporters say medical marijuana could help 55,000 Arizonans who suffer from such diseases as cancer, HIV or multiple sclerosis. Critics say it would just open the door to more drug abuse.

Andrew Myers is with the Arizona Medical Marijuana Project, which put Prop 203 on the ballot.

“What this initiative will allow is certain seriously and terminally ill patients, with a very distinct list of medical conditions, to get a recommendation from their physician to use medical marijuana,” said Myers.

He emphasized a recommendation is different from a prescription “because marijuana is classified as a Schedule 1 substance by the FDA so it cannot be legally prescribed.”

Marijuana can help patients with HIV or AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, Crohn’s Disease, glaucoma and severe and chronic pain.

LINCOLN — Proponents of legalizing marijuana for medical use will have to look elsewhere to sell their message.

The Nebraska Board of Pharmacy decided Monday that it lacked the authority to reclassify marijuana as a drug that could be legally prescribed.

That is a decision for a federal agency such as the Drug Enforcement Administration or the Food and Drug Administration, said Rick Zarek, a Gothenburg, Neb., pharmacist who heads the State Pharmacy Board.

“There’s nothing the Board of Pharmacy can do as long as it’s listed as a Schedule 1 drug and ineligible for dispensing,” Zarek said.

Schedule 1 drugs, by federal law, cannot be prescribed because they are potentially addictive and have no medical use.